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The Long, Awful Drive
Frogurt drives to the cliff to kill himself. Chapter 1 Frogurt Belch was an existential mess. ‘This is certainly the end,’ he thought to himself, and repeated it internally again and again as he drove his beat-up Pontiac toward a cliff jutting off into the Atlantic Ocean. He began to say it out loud, over and over until he was shouting at the top of his lungs, drowning out the radio and the sound of heavy rain falling on his windshield. He kept screaming as tears began to stream down his face. He swerved out of the way of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler, masked by the water in his eyes and on his windows, breathing a sigh of relief. He pulled over to the side of the road, opened his door, and vomited onto the muddy ground. He wiped his mouth and lifted his head when he heard a familiar sound. The radio was playing his song. Frogurt had been a star. Just two months ago, out of nowhere, Frogurt Belch had released a hit single, “Turn It Down,” and became instantly famous. For a while, one couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the song itself or some parody of it. Frogurt was on talk shows, doing meet and greets, and being hounded by the paparazzi. He had been scheduled to host Saturday Night Live the next week. His live shows, just like his song, had become legendary in the month that they appeared. After all, Frogurt had only made one piece of music in his entire life. The concerts became almost orgiastic conglomerations of considerably more talented artists aching to share a stage with the one, the only, Frogurt Belch. Even if you hated “Turn It Down,” it was worth it to go to a Frogurt concert to see the rest of the pure talent assembled. Yes, Frogurt’s life was extraordinary, and extraordinarily changed from what it had been before. He had been living alone, sad and lonely. His only consolation was his television set, which he’d watch religiously. God, he loved TV. He would wake up every morning, at six thirty precisely, and would stick to the same routine. He would sit on the toilet, struggling, give up to get in the shower, brush his teeth while in there, get out and dry himself off, and reluctantly return to the seat for a bowel movement. He’d go into the kitchen and pour himself a bowl of Cheerios, grabbing the phone from the wall mount and dialing his mother. Jessica Belch was not a frog like any of her sons. That had come from her husband’s side of the family, God rest his soul. She often wondered if maybe that was why she often disagreed and argued with so many of them. There were a couple of children that she hadn’t heard from in years after particularly nasty partings. Frogurt knew that the issue of froggishness had nothing to do with the fact that his mother was simply a bitch in almost every sense of the word. He, being the only Belch brother to actually love her, had taken up the job of consoling her and helping her keep the household in check after the death of his father, but it was an impossible task. Jessica was simply inconsolable and insisted upon having things her way. She was a bit tyrannical, and the sad passing of her husband earned her enough pity that she could continue living in a ridiculous manner. She insisted that Frogurt call her every morning, knowing that he was one of the few children over which she still had power. Honestly, anyone could have had power over Frogurt. He was spineless, a mess of psychological afflictions, paranoia, and anxieties. He’d been like this since birth; when he was a child his brothers would never want to play with him because he was boring. After the morning phone call, Frogurt would get dressed, putting on the same sort of boring shirt every day, and walk to the train station. Every day he’d buy a newspaper, which he always managed to leave on the counter at the bodega, and take the subway into Manhattan. The subway was where Frogurt’s worst fears came to life. Nothing went on, but inside Frogurt’s head his thoughts ran rampant. He’d had the fear of rapes and mugging put into his head at a young age by Jessica, who’d hoped to dissuade her sons from taking the train alone. Frogurt had a nightmare that night, ending with him dead on the tracks and his older brother Hector, Jr. pissing on his corpse. Frogurt dreaded taking the train every morning, but it was the quickest way to get to work. He pictured every other mild-mannered commuter as a depraved pervert or a murderous malcontent, out to skin him and eat his heart. In his addled mind, the indecipherable drone of the subway announcements turned into the voice of Satan himself, urging Frogurt’s fellow passengers to commit all sorts of egregious and hellish acts on the poor frog. He emerged from the stinking crack of the earth gasping for breath. Every day he would walk the block and a half from the station to the unimaginable dull office building where he would perform his unimaginably dull job. In those days, Frogurt was a telemarketer. Every day his bosses, two lecherous, looming twins who were the oversexed and underworked sons of the owner of the company, would come into his cubicle, slap him upside the head, and set down a binder filled with numbers to cold call in order to hock whatever garbage the corporation was selling that day. They’d take turns hitting him across the face until he cried in pain, docked his pay for disturbing the peace, and slapped each other’s asses on the way out. On that fateful day when Frogurt’s life began to change, the binder was devoid of any numbers, with each page simply reading: random. Frogurt sighed a deep sigh and got to work dialing. Nine hours later, after an entire day of being yelled at by the elderly who were sick of telemarketers calling them and trying to sell them random junk, Frogurt stumbled out of the office building and took a drastically wrong turn. Somehow, in his stupor, Frogurt wandered uptown and into the heart of Harlem. He didn’t notice his mistake for a while, as he was deep within his own mind, thinking of Charlotte from accounting and how she’d winked at him, or maybe she’d just blinked. Still, it was more than Frogurt was used to, and he clung to that moment with great hope. He was imagining them growing old together when he realized he was somewhere completely wrong. He realized where he was and his mind started racing. Here was where he was going to die. His life was going to end right here, right now, on the wrong end of a knife or a gun wielded by some gap-toothed homeless miscreant out for blood or money. They would approach him, see his nice shirt, and riddle him full of bullets before he could cry out in his weak voice that he really didn’t have any money whatsoever. Frogurt turned over some last words in his head, knowing that he’d want to say something good before he kicked the bucket. Frogurt didn’t die. Nobody cared about Frogurt back then, especially not anyone in Harlem. His back arched to make himself look bigger, Frogurt slowly turned around and made his way back downtown, back to the train station so that he could get back home. A little kid with hair bigger than his head and a voice deeper than Frogurt’s insisted that he take a local magazine, for which Frogurt eagerly coughed up three bucks to avoid his imagined bloodshed, and soon he was back home in his tiny apartment. He put a frozen meal into the microwave and sat down to watch TV when the phone rang, as it always did. It was Jessica. “Frogurt,” she said. “Where were you when I called at seven? You know I always call at seven.” “I know, Mama,” he replied. “But I was out.” “Out? Out doing what? What could you possibly have been doing out?” “Not out. Just outside. I got lost.” “You got lost? You’ve been doing the same thing for years now and you still get lost.” “I—” “When are you going to grow up, Frogurt?” “Mama, I just took a wrong—” “Frogurt, don’t you know how dangerous it is out there? Don’t you remember what happened to your father?” Of course Frogurt remembered. How could he ever forget? “Of course, Mama.” “Now that’s a good boy. Frogurt, I need you to come over here tomorrow.” “Mama, there’s a novel writing class at the Learning Annex that I wanted—” “Oh please, Frogurt, you and I both know that you won’t work up the courage to go to that, so be a good little boy and come help me move my fridge?” “Why can’t Hamlet help you with that?” “Oh you know how he is, Frogurt, you know I can’t get him to do anything for me. He’s not like you, Frogurt. He’s not my special little boy like you are, Frogurt.” “Okay, Mama.” Frogurt absentmindedly began to leaf through the magazine he’d bought in fear back when he was in Harlem. “And Frogurt, I want you to call your brother Slumleg. I want you to find out how he’s doing and how his kids are. Don’t bother asking him about that Italian slut.” “Okay, Mama.” “Have you heard the news, Frogurt?” “No, Mama.” It was some sort of hip-hop magazine. Frogurt wasn’t very big into music back then, besides the theme songs to whatever was on television. Nonetheless, Frogurt was sort of intrigued by the rappers on the cover decked out in gold and diamonds and enamored by the beautiful women within the pages. “Your brother Hector, Jr. has knocked over another bank. Can you believe that boy? Where did we go wrong, Frogurt? Thank God I had at least one good one. You know, Frogurt, your father and I should have just skipped right to you. One would have been good enough. We didn’t need a whole troop of frogs marching around and giving me and the US government headaches. Between Hector’s crimes and Jib Lanes going around hunting that piece of shit Willie, not to mention whatever it is Eight is up to, I have my hands full. Oh of course not, Giblet,” she said to her stupidest son, who was there with her. “You’re a good one too.” “Mmhm, Mama.” Frogurt had read the short rag from one end to the other and his eyes had lit up with excitement when he reached the end. There was an advertisement there: a contest was being held by some underground rap label. They promised that they could make a star out of whomever sent them the best song they could make. “Well, Frogurt, are you going to come over tomorrow?” “Yes, Mama. I have to go now, Mama, my show’s going to start.” “Goodbye, Fro—” He didn’t even watch the show. He spent the entire night on the computer, absorbing thirty years of hip-hop knowledge in a ten hour period. By morning, he had concocted in his head what was, to his estimation, the perfect rap song. He skipped work the next day in order to go to Sam Ash and spend what little allowance Jessica had given him that month on a drum machine. By that evening, he had finished. “Turn It Down” was created, in all of its glory, and Frogurt slipped it in the mailbox the next morning as if he were mailing a letter bomb. He took the train into work that day and didn’t even mind the horrible cretins who rode the subway with him. When he got off he thought he saw the little kid who sold him the magazine and shook his hand with incredible enthusiasm. Frogurt very nearly got beaten by an angry midget that day, only to come face to face with his even angrier bosses. “Yo, Faggurt,” said Fettuccine, the stupider of the two brothers. He pushed Frogurt to his counterpart. “Where the fuck were you, Frogurt?” asked Alfredo, the dumber twin. He pushed Frogurt back, harder. “You were supposed to be here yesterday, you shit.” “Who the fuck gave you permission to ditch?” “I—well, I was—” Frogurt stuttered. “Okay, I don’t give a shit,” said Fettuccine. “Dad’s gonna tear you a new one. He’s gonna fuck you in the ass,” warned Alfredo. That black midget came upstairs, looking for Frogurt. He was an emissary from the record company. Frogurt had won their competition, even though “Turn It Down” had been pieced together almost entirely out of stolen Jay-Z songs. “Fuck you!” Frogurt said to the twins on his way out. Fettuccine decked him in the face. And after that, it was all amazing. Frogurt’s life was changed completely around. Suddenly, he had everything. Money, power, women, cars, you name it. Frogurt was living large on top of the world, and Belch was a household name. He bought Jessica a beautiful apartment to live in with Hamlet and Giblet, while he moved out onto Long Island, quitting his job at the telemarketing firm. Girls fainted at the sight of him. Men pushed each other over to shake his hand. Everyone clamored for a piece of Frogurt. For the first time in his life, he felt special. Then all that passed. After two months of Frogurtmania, nobody cared anymore. Frogurt was a one hit wonder, even if he was a potent one. Slowly, he watched his new life crumble around him. He quickly went into debt. Saturday Night Live and a hundred other venues cancelled on him. The sponsorships, the commercials, the tour, the album: they all fell to pieces. He had to sell his Ferrari and his house and watched as everything went back to the way it was, but worse. Frogurt moved in with his mother and brothers and spent a torturous two nights there before he decided that he was going to kill himself. It was late at night when Frogurt sneaked out of the apartment and took Hamlet’s rarely driven car out of the garage. It was raining and thundering as he drove calmly out of the city, beginning to hyperventilate as he realized just exactly what he was going to do. ‘This is certainly the end,’ he thought to himself. He sat there, the car parked on the side of the road, listening to his song play for the first time in two weeks. Before that it had been ubiquitous. He was too sullen to even bob his head along to the beat: “F to the R to the O-G-U-R-T Everyone wants to get down with me My name is Frogurt F to the rogurt I’m in the back of the club And I’m eating my yogurt DJ, turn the music down I’m tryna do my homework.” Frogurt realized just how true the lyrics he wrote were: it was a hard knock ouch for ouch. His life had turned into hell. It was all gone. He figured it must have been a mistake; that some people are just born to live inconsequential lives. That was Frogurt. His life was boring, it was depressing, but it was his. Then some great something or other in the sky had made a smudge on a piece of paper and suddenly he had everything. It must have been a fluke! But he noticed it. He noticed his mistake. He went back and fixed it, and Frogurt was sent hurtling into his old life, back into drudgery and nothingness. He couldn’t bear it. Frogurt had tasted the good life and every mouthful without it tasted an awful lot like shit. That’s why he was there. He felt that his life had had its peak and that there was nothing left to live for. He closed the door and turned the car back on. He drove it to the precipice, facing the water. He took a long look at the inky blackness of the sea spreading forth before him. In his mind he thought of that one time Charlotte had winked or maybe just blinked at him, and then he thought of all the women that had come after that. He thought of his mother, his father, and his brothers. He thought of the cold embrace of all that sea in front of him. The song ended. “That was Frogurt Bean or something with “Turn It Down,” last month’s most popular song. No one cares now, though. Last time I heard or cared, Frogurt had died. Good riddance, I see. In more interesting music, here’s the Rhythm Sec—” Frogurt angrily turned off the radio. He took deep breaths, crying. The Belches always believed in destiny. Frogurt’s father, Hector, had always told the children that something had a plan for them, and there was no fighting that. He buckled his seatbelt and revved the engine. “I guess this is my destiny,” he said to himself. “To die here alone, hurtling off this cliff. I wonder what they’ll tell Mama. She always liked Hamlet the most anyway.” He put his foot on the gas pedal and inched forward. “Nooooo! That ain’t ya destiny, Frogurt, ya ras bumbaclot!” Frogurt was no longer alone in the car. The ghost of his father had joined him. Frogurt quickly pulled his foot off the pedal. The Pontiac tottered on the edge. 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